Quidditch
by Gwenevere Black
Summary: Hermione Granger is good at everything Hogwarts has to offer - that is, until Draco Malfoy discovers her one weakness: Quidditch. Hermione is fully prepared to watch him exploit that weakness, but what she's not prepared for is him...helping her? 1-shot


_Draco Malfoy strode off the Quidditch pitch with evident satisfaction – in fact, he looked like a cat that has caught and devoured a particularly difficult mouse. His perfect hair was mussed and sweat dripped off him, but wearing emerald green Slytherin robes and an arrogant smirk, he still managed to look absolutely godlike. He'd just caught a __**very **__elusive Snitch and effectively trounced the Hufflepuff team. Yes, he reflected, he was the god of Quidditch as well as everything else._

_Hermione Granger was much too busy to watch a Quidditch match that didn't involve Harry and Ron. In fact, the only reason she was heading towards the pitch at all was because she knew McGonagall would be there, and she needed to ask a question about the essay she'd been assigned for Transfiguration. She, too, was feeling particularly satisfied, having finished two essays for Potions and Muggle Studies about which she was very confident._

_Unfortunately, both were about to come crashing down from that high._

_Hermione was looking down, reading over what she'd written so far, and not paying attention. Draco was…well, Draco was always completely absorbed in himself. So, naturally, they collided._

_Hermione went down with some dignity, as she threw her hands out to catch herself. In the process, though, she lost the rather lengthy scroll she'd been holding, which fell to the ground and unrolled itself for several feet. Draco went down with much less grace than Hermione had, landing soundly on his rear. He had been carrying his top-of-the-line broomstick, and it, too, went flying._

"_Granger!" he roared. "If there is so much one scratch on that Nimbus, you will regret it for the rest of your life."_

"_You ought to watch where you're going, then, if you don't want to run into people," Hermione retorted. Draco leapt to his feet with a snarl and, instead of helping her up, raced to his broomstick and inspected it closely._

"_You're a lucky Mudblood," he sneered. "Next time, try to get your nose out of a book enough to watch where you're walking."_

"_Oh, this is __**my **__fault?" Hermione asked indignantly. "I was busy! You were walking around without a care in the world other than yourself, and you still run into people! At least my nose isn't so high up I'd drown if it chanced to rain."_

"_How original," Draco snapped. "Like I haven't heard that one before."_

"_I'm surprised you have," she fired back, "considering you don't care about anything anyone else says. I swear, you are the most selfish, stuck-up prick I've ever met!"_

"_Coming from the queen of stuck-up herself," he said mockingly. "I'm selfish, am I? You don't care about anyone other than yourself, either!"_

"_I do too!" Hermione shouted. "I have friends, unlike you – you have followers. You want to know why you're Seeker in Quidditch? Well, for one thing, it's because Daddy Dearest bribed the team with new broomsticks to let you join, but it's honestly because the Seeker doesn't have to be a team player! They can work on their own, so it's perfect for you – because you don't have the capacity for teamwork!"_

"_At least I can walk on a Quidditch pitch without falling on my face," he snapped. "You couldn't play Quidditch if your life depended on it. No, scratch that – you couldn't stay astride a broomstick two feet off the ground if your life depended on it!"_

_Hermione let out a wordless cry of frustration, snatched up her parchment, and stomped off._

"_I can to ride a broomstick," she muttered angrily to herself, but even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. She'd ridden Ron's broomstick once, back when they were an item, and promptly fallen flat on her face. "Ok, so, whatever. I don't have to be able to ride a broom. It doesn't matter – and it especially doesn't matter because Malfoy said it._

And it _didn't _matter. But Hermione was still standing at the edge of the empty Quidditch pitch that Saturday morning, almost too early to even consider being awake, clutching Harry's "borrowed" broomstick. She knew for a fact no one was coming because she had checked the register in McGonagall's office – the team captain had to stop in and reserve his team's time to practice.

"So," she said aloud. "What now?" She hadn't the faintest idea how to…well, make it go. Did you turn a key, like a Muggle car? Did you struggle with a pull-cord, like her father did every time he started the lawn mower?

She failed to notice Draco, also oblivious, walking towards the pitch in ratty old practice robes, holding his thousand-Galleon broomstick with skillful ease.

Draco wasn't but a few yards from her when he noticed the lone figure, cloaked not in school robes but in brown sweatpants and a blue tank top, standing at the pitch with her back to him.

"Granger?" he called, recognizing the flyaway hair pulled into a ponytail. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Hermione's heart almost stopped.

Really, honestly. Of anyone to come to the pitch while she was trying her hand at the sport seemingly made to thwart her, it had to be…

Malfoy.

"What do you want?" she snapped angrily, turned to face him, and by some fit of idiocy, attempting to hide Harry's broom horizontally behind her back.

"Very subtle, Granger," he drawled lazily, arching an eyebrow at her clever hiding place. "So, flying a broomstick, are we? Did someone perhaps take to heart what I said on the pitch the other day?"

"N-no," she stuttered, wondering where on Earth her sharp tongue and quick wit went whenever Malfoy showed up. Perhaps it had something to do with the old, too-small tee shirt exposed by his robes straining over his well-muscled chest. Maybe it had something to do with his perfectly tousled blonde locks falling over his steely eyes in the wind. Perhaps it had something to do with how hot she was feeling all the sudden, despite the chilly breeze.

"Come on, then, Granger, let's see it," he said. He tossed his broomstick to the ground, walked closer, and crossed his arms with an expectant expression. After a moment's pause, where neither moved, he flapped an impatient hand. "Anytime, Mudblood."

Hermione was a bookworm – she was brilliant – she was easily the smartest witch at Hogwarts – and she had awful trouble saying these next few words. "I'm not sure how," she murmured. Draco arched his eyebrows incredulously.

"Really? Book-worm Granger doesn't know something? Oh, this _is _interesting."

"Shut it, Malfoy. Perhaps you could help. After all, you are the self-acclaimed God of Quidditch."

"I, Granger, am the God of everything," he asserted breezily. Then, with a dry sort of sarcasm, he prompted, "Throw your leg over it. Push off the ground. Hang on tight."

See, Harry's Nimbus 2000 was near-perfect. There was but one flaw, a flaw they had fixed in Draco's Nimbus 2001. Draco was well aware of it, seeing as he'd shamed Potter about it several times. It was that, when one kicked off the ground, it jerked to 60 miles an hour rather disconcertingly fast. Fast enough that, if one wasn't experienced it, it might throw a person off.

Hermione was thrown off.

Draco had a great and roaring laugh at the sight of high-and-mighty Granger in a discombobulated heap on the ground. It trailed off, however, when she didn't get up.

"Granger?" he called uncertainly. Surely she hadn't gotten hurt.

In another second, he'd raced to her side, kneeling by her in sudden and undeniable concern. "Granger?" he asked again. "Hermione?" he murmured, so soft he himself barely heard it. Suddenly Hermione sprang to life in the form of a very sharp, very sudden, very stinging slap to Draco's cheek.

"You bastard!" she screamed. She jumped to her feet because Draco had, but immediately crumpled to the ground again, shrieking in pain. "You bastard!" she repeated, clutching her ankle.

"Me?" Draco roared angrily. "You _slapped _me!"

"Because you put me on a broom you knew would dump me!" she shouted back. Her ankle, she knew, was broken. Damn, she thought. Her wand was in her robe. Her robe was back at the Gryffindor common room, and she knew Draco wasn't helping her walk there.

"That's true," Draco murmured. He knelt down again and pulled his wand from his robe pocket. "Let me see."

"Oh, no," she snapped. "You might curse me, or something."

"Quit being ridiculous, Granger," he said with exasperation. "I am going to _heal _your ankle, unless you would prefer to limp all the way back to the castle."

"Why?" she asked with suspicion.

"Why?" he repeated bitterly. "When I find out, I'll let you know."

He didn't know where this change of heart came in, or why. All he knew was that Hermione Granger was hurt because of him, he felt suddenly awful, and that same damned concern that had shown up when she'd fallen the first time was back. It might also have to do with the way her chest heaved up and down with pain-labored breathing, pushing her breasts tantalizingly into view. Maybe it had to do with the fact that, now that her frizzy hair was pulled away from her face, he noticed how amazingly pretty she was. Maybe it was how her bright eyes shown with intelligence and curiosity and – now – anger and pain.

Without another protest from her, he murmured a spell and her ankle was instantly mended. In stark contrast to the last time he'd put her on the ground, he helped her carefully up.

And then, to great shock in both of them, he retrieved his own Nimbus 2001 and helped her onto it. With a brief hope it could hold both of them, he climbed on behind her.

"Relax," he commanded, feeling how tense she was as his chest pressed against her back. He didn't know her sharp intake of breath wasn't because she was afraid. "I won't let you fall."

Draco Malfoy was the _last _person she should trust. He was the last person who would protect her. Yet Hermione felt utterly safe when he spoke those words.

She took a deep breath and tried her best to calm her frazzled nerves. "If you knock me off," she said carefully, coldly, but with undeniable venom, "I will kill you."

Draco's mouth twitched into a smile that was, by reflex, half a smirk. "Duly noted," he told her, fighting to keep the laugh out of his voice. He wondered briefly why on earth he was laughing. Granger, he knew, was by far the most powerful and knowledgeable witch at Hogwarts. If _anyone _was going to kill him, it would most definitely be Granger.

"Now," he ordered, "hang on tight – again – and push off the ground."

"I'm not too keen on that," she snapped. "The last time I did, I broke my ankle."

"Fine, then," he muttered. "I'll do it myself."

And then they were flying smoothly through the air, the swift breeze ruffling and snapping at Draco's robes.

"Wow," Hermione laughed, loosing one hand from the broom to trail it in the air. "This is amazing."

"It's a broomstick," Draco said, confused.

"I've never been flying before," she explained. The broom suddenly took a downward dive in response to Hermione leaning forward to look down.

"Lean back and pull up," Draco instructed. Hermione jerked up on the broomstick, and suddenly they were racing almost straight up. She shrieked, and it was town away in the wind.

Growling in frustration, Draco steadied the broomstick (hard, when one can't actually hold on to it) and directed it lower in the air. If they were going to fall, he reflected, might as well be close to the ground already.

"Granger," he sighed, "you can't be yanking it around like that. You'll kill both of us." He suddenly realized she was quaking ever so slightly against him. "Granger," he repeated, softly this time, his lips at her ear, "it's ok. It was a mistake – I fixed it. We're fine."

Hermione drew a ragged breath and nodded. "We're fine," she repeated. "We're fine, we're fine, we're – flying into the goalpost! Draco!"

The fog had hidden the post of one of the round rings through which the players threw the Quaffle. Now, considering they were maybe a hundred yards from it and closing in fast, it was becoming more and more apparent through the mist.

"Left!" Draco shouted. "Go left!"

By a hair's breadth Hermione jerked the broom and missed the post. "Draco," she pleaded, chest heaving, heart hammering, "land this thing!"

"It's ok, you're ok. Just turn right – there you go, nice and easy – and aim it down a bit – just a bit! There, that's it, slowly, slowly…that's it." The instant Hermione's feet touched the sand at the bottom of the Quidditch pitch, she stumbled off the broom and sank shakily to the ground. Draco set his broom down and pulled her back to her feet.

"Are – are you ok?" he asked, trying to not feel the fire radiating from where she still had his hands.

She didn't let go. "Of course," she snapped. "I'd be better, though, if a certain priggish Slytherin hadn't nearly killed me."

"Me?" he cried angrily, throwing her grip from his hands. "I kept you from killing yourself! Why are you yelling at me?!"

"Well…I don't know how, but somehow this has to be your fault!" He couldn't believe it. She had the gall to be _angry _with him – after he'd _saved _her – _twice_!

"Now you're being ridiculous," he sneered. "Get a hold of yourself, Granger. It's not any fun arguing with you when you're not making any sense."

"That's your fault, too," she muttered. "You make it hard to concentrate."

He retorted, "You've done just fine before now," before her words had a chance to sink in. "Wait, me? Why?" Why was lust burning through him now that she'd said that? Why was it tainted – poisoned – with affection?

Hermione flushed all the way to the roots of her hair. "I didn't mean to say that," she ground out. Why wasn't she sort she had?

She didn't see him grab her hands again, but she felt the fire of his touch. He yanked her against him, and she felt the silhouette of his muscles through his thin shirt.

"But you said it anyway," he growled. "Now tell me what you meant by it." Could it be that she felt the fire too, the fire that ignited somewhere in him whenever she caught his eyes or brushed against him?

"I can't explain," she told him. "I don't think you'd understand – whether you did or not, you wouldn't be able to empathize." She could never explain the searing fire.

He groaned in frustration. Then he put a hand under her chin, jerked her head up to make her meet his eyes, and gave her a bruising kiss.

"Now," he gasped when he pulled away. "Did you feel that?" The fire was making it hard for him to think entirely straight. "Tell me you felt that," he added in a lower, rougher voice.

Hermione's eyes were still closed, her thoughts still hopelessly muddled. Her whole body was on fire; it burned through her veins and seared her skin where it met his. All she could think to do was stand up on her tiptoes and kiss him again.

He took that as a yes.

Draco tore his hands from hers and tangled them in her hair, parting her lips roughly and ravaging her mouth. She gasped and pressed herself closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and forgot entirely the fact that someone could walk up at any moment. Draco pulled away, and she whimpered quietly at the loss of contact. Her whimpers turned to moans, however, when he pulled her head back and trailed his lips down her neck, nipping lightly at the smooth skin all the way.

"Not worried about my dirty blood, are you?" she mocked, and paid for it when he bit down. The slight pain sent trills of pleasure down her spine.

"Now worried about a one-night stand, are you?" he mocked back, and kissed her before she could answer.

"Draco," she gasped out when they pulled back. He placed a soft kiss on her neck where he'd bitten her before he answered.

"Hmm?"

"Why?"

"I told you, Hermione," he murmured into her hair as he wrapped his arms gently around her. She sighed softly and nuzzled into his collarbone. "When I find out, I'll let you know."


End file.
